Real Men Knit(80)

Jesse let out a breath and watched as Errol’s eyes traveled up Erika’s long body.

Jesse gave her a look. “Seriously? That’s your greeting?”

“What?” she said. “I was talking about basketball.”

Just then Val came over. “What up? Erika, are you talking about what an expert ball handler you are?” she said, with a smile that could cut through steel.

Kerry walked over then and looked down at Errol. She put her arm around his shoulder. “We have cupcakes, you know. They just got put out. I think you’d better grab one before they’re gone.” Her tone was soft and easy, but Jesse could tell she was tense.

The boy looked back and forth between the glaring faces of the women, then made the exit that Jesse kind of wished he could.

Erika laughed. “Funny. So have you both moved in here now?” She looked at Jesse. “You didn’t tell me you were hiring a whole team for your little shop.”

Jesse moved to stand closer to Kerry. He put his arm around her. “No, I didn’t,” he said, looking Erika in the eye and hoping to end this conversation. He looked down at Kerry and gave her a warm smile. “Listen, I think we’re needed up front.” He tilted his head toward a couple looking at the baby hats they’d finished. He almost let out an audible sigh of relief when Kerry gave him a warm smile back.

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go. Don’t want to keep potential customers waiting.”





24




Kerry was unusually quiet over the next week. Though they both should have been over the moon, sexing and laughing and laughing and sexing some more to celebrate the successful opening and relaunch of Strong Knits, there was no laughter. Crazy, right? The old him would be perfectly happy with just sexing. The woman of his dreams was ready and willing and in his arms every night, and here he was not satisfied. He wanted more. No, needed more. Not just her body. Jesse now knew he wanted that and her smiles, her laughter and, dammit, even her ire and admonishments. Kerry wasn’t Kerry if she wasn’t her full and whole self.

And Jesse could tell she wasn’t. That she was keeping something from him. Maybe not intentionally, though he suspected as much, but he could tell there was something she didn’t trust sharing with him. A part of herself that she was holding back despite the easy fake smiles and light back-and-forth banter at night. But who was he to talk? As for him, he was holding back too. Because, for the life of him, he couldn’t bring himself to just ask her. Ask her straight out what was going on. If she wasn’t ready to tell him, then the reverse was true too—he wasn’t ready for the beautiful fragile bubble he was living in to burst just yet either.

He knew he was being a total coward, but then again, what else was new? He could practically hear Mama Joy scolding him from the grave. The quicker he let Kerry go, the better, was probably what she’d tell him, but whenever he thought of his mother saying those words, they never seemed to sound quite right in his own head.

He wanted to talk to Kerry about things, comfort her like she needed and deserved to be comforted, be there for her like she was for him, but somehow he just kept coming up so fucking short. It wasn’t that she intimidated him, it was just that he was afraid of the ultimate goodbye that he knew was to come when and if he let his real feelings out. Jesse thought back to when he’d caught Kerry restraightening Mama Joy’s room. He’d caught the look of loss and sadness as she gently refolded the unfinished shawl and carefully sorted the yarns, her tears flowing freely when she thought no one was watching. He should have cared for her then. Should have dried her tears. Made her laugh. Done something, anything, but instead he’d just stood there. Still. He’d watched and let her cry before walking away like an impotent coward. If that wasn’t so like him, he didn’t know what was. Useless and undeserving.

They’d talked after the party. Or at least he had, trying to explain the presence of so many of his exes, but she didn’t want to listen. Not really. It seemed the old Kerry, that girl in the loft, the one by his side who was always there, was gone. This woman was distant, aloof, a shell holding his sweet Kerry Girl captive.

Finally, not sure how to break the ice and get through her wall, he just blurted things out when they were in bed that night. “I did a sort of apology tour. I didn’t like all the negative comments, so I wanted to turn them around and make them into a positive. For the business.” It sounded stupid already, but there was no going back now, so Jesse continued, this time with a little more desperation in his voice. Maybe she’d get it then. “And it worked. We got so many donations that the bank is now off our back.”

Kerry’s frown would have been comic if it wasn’t so chilling. “Wow, you really do have magical charms.”

“Come on, Kerry Girl. It’s not like that. This breather is what we need.” He reached for her and she pulled away, shocking him.

“I’m not a girl. When are you going to realize that?” she said, then let out a long breath before looking at him again. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Jesse,” she said. “I don’t have any right to you. Not in the past or in the future. Besides, I’m happy for you and your brothers. You’re right. This breather is exactly what you need.”

You? Your? Shit. When Kerry Girl wanted to hit, she knew just where and how, and the way she twisted the use of “breather” to make it about them when she knew he was talking about the money?